Has to be a Hermannhof Norton from Missouri, tasted way back in the late '80s. I picked it up at the winery and opened it at an offline a few months later. The obvious result of nastily unsanitary wine making, it had lost all its color, gone Champagne-fizzy, smelled like vomit and tasted like ripe cheese. Well, I only took the tiniest little taste, and that only for the sake of science.

In fairness, I understand that Hermannhof is a respected winery nowadays and doing a good job. But in 1989? Woooeeee!!

In keeping with the spirit of Halloween, a guy I used to work with make pumpkin wine.
But I did scare a bunch of people with my costume this year. I have a beanie with a propellor on top and am riding a unicycle. Yep, I dressed up as PaulB.

Not scary, but I'll have to go with the Pumpkin wine too in honor of the season. Made a couple of one gallon batches of it, each slightly different. Didn't really like either. But I'll have a glass or two tonight just to fit the holiday. Going to break out a bottle at thanksgiving too, as well as a bottle of zucchini wine. Figure it's a little cornucopia of wine.

Of course, also can't forget the Vampire wines from Romania if we're talking about this holiday

The scariest wines I ever tasted were bottles of homemade stuff that were given to me. At least their thoughts were genuinely good.

The scariest commercially available imported wine I've ever tasted was Retsina. Again, it came to me as a gift from a friend, who just returned from a visit to Greece.

The scariest commercially available domestic wine I've ever tasted was Charles Shaw Shiraz. It had a nasty aftertaste reminiscent of diesel fuel and raw meat. We placed a bottle of this carefully wrapped "mystery wine" in with other bottles of Syrah/Shiraz at a party a couple of years ago. Most of it ended up in the nearby dump bucket.

I had to do a serious search for this one, I was afraid I'd lost it. This is my actual note from the experience:

'97 Chateau Pegasus Naoussa "Appellation of Origin of High Quality." Greece
Appearance: Orange, rim, garnet center, but kind of brownish overall. Throwing a deposit. Prematurely aged?
Nose: Horse saddle. Stinky! It says "ecological" on the label, and maybe they didn't use any sulfites, because there is clearly a bacterial problem here. Palate: Leather. Old Slavonian Oak. Very tannic. I don't know what grape was involved in the making of this wine, but it has been seriously abused.

I had another one on an Argentine merlot that tasted just like a dill pickle barrel, but I can't find it...

An acquaintance gave a bottle of Nebbiolo he had made to our pastor. The pastor in turn brought it to us when we had him out for dinner. We opened a nice bottle for dinner that night, and hung on to the "gift" for a while. I didn't want to call the guy who made it to get more details, as I didn't want to get the original recipient in trouble.

So we popped it a few months later. It may well have been on Halloween. It was scary. Sort of like sawdust dipped in ink, and fleshed out with grape juice and grain alcohol.

Well, excluding wines that were flat-out undrinkable from bottle faults (like many Coturris) that might vary, or cork taint, here's a couple of the scariest commercial wines I can remember that I thought unfortunately were probably representative bottles:

NV Tombstone Red
From Arizona, this was just flat-out weird. A bit off-dry, with a strange
combination of flavors (salami, Concord grape jelly, and cherries. Is this made by the Tombstone pizza people? Not by winemakers, it seems. I thought we should put a warning tag on the bottle, so waitstaff wouldn't innocently try the leftovers.

Which started off with a Georgian red. Ah, Georgian wine. Yes, I know you've been all waiting for notes on the NV Tamada Khvanchkura, from the cradle of winemaking. My initial note says "semi-rancid grape juice", but I'm prejudiced in general against sweet reds.

Ah yes, forgot the Georgian wines. ones I've tried so far (fell into the blocking out for your own safety categrory) have been "interesting" to say the least. Sad thing is, i actually found one that was interesting in a good way, a nice dry, somewaht tannic red, and forgot to copy down info on it. Luckily, shop I got it from, while carrying a good suply of Russian and Georgian wines, keeps pretty stable stock, and keeps them in the same place. so i should be able to find it again with no problems. Of course, also means I can avoid the bad ones with no trouble.